


Days in Lists

by PrussianInAmerica



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Therapy, To-do lists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrussianInAmerica/pseuds/PrussianInAmerica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's therapist suggests he start making daily lists to give him a sense of what he'll be doing each day. He generally ignores them at first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days in Lists

The blog hadn't been working, but really, John hadn't been trying to make it work. Ella suggested he start making a to-do list every morning instead. ( _"It helps some of my patients with depression. Gives them a concrete idea of what will happen every day. It couldn't hurt to try, John."_ ) She insists that even if he ignores the list completely he should try. That's exactly what he does the first few days, making the list obediently every morning and abandoning it on his desk before crumpling it and throwing it out the next morning.

On the fourth afternoon he picks the list up and carefully selects something on it he can do.

_Get tea._

John ventures out into London and returns with a box of Sleepytime and a box of Earl Grey.

He falls asleep earlier that night, but he still wakes in the wee hours of the morning surrounded by the echos of screams and holding back tears. When he can pull himself out of bed, he goes to his desk and makes his list. He only ends up doing two things off the list of nearly a dozen, but it's better than yesterday so it's an improvement.

Harry comes around one day and gives him the phone Clara had given her half a year before. She spends the entire time she's there talking about her new place and how John is lucky because his is nicer than hers. Not that he had to try very hard to acheive that. He doesn't get anything on his list done that day.

Ella never asks to see his lists, she just asks him how they're going. ( _"Keep working to get more done on each list. They're meant to be schedules, not challenges."_ ) Sometimes she suggests things to add to his list, and he usually adds them right after his session is over but most of the time he doesn't get to them.

_Meet someone new_ , is what she asks him to add this time. He does, but he doesn't give it much stock. After all, _do something extraordinary (as compared to your new everyday life)_ is just above it and he is rather looking forward to finding something extraordinary to do today.

Lucky him, he gets to do both. Because today is the day John Watson meets Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
